'Look to your neighbours', Soham told

The town at the centre of the hunt for missing girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman was tonight told to turn detective to help police find their potential abductor.

Detective Chief Inspector Andy Hebb told a packed public meeting that past cases of abduction showed that the solution to the disappearance was most likely to be found in the town of Soham itself.

"Look at the behaviour of your friends, relatives, neighbours, anything," he said.

"Think about how they are behaving. Are they doing anything differently? That's the important thing."

The meeting was then addressed by a former chief superintendent of the area, Maurice Audley, who called on residents to take a more vigilant approach to their neighbours. He said: "Soham people and Fenlanders generally aren't at all inquisitive about their neighbours, but we do like to know what's going on."

Mr Audley, who said he worked as a policeman for 36 years, said: "It has never been police policy to set neighbour against neighbour or to ask someone in the community to spy on their neighbours.

"I don't want you to do that, but I do want you to go home and talk to your wives, husbands and children, to cast your minds back to that Sunday."

He continued: "Talk to each other and think about the neighbour on your right-hand side, the neighbour on your left-hand side.

"Are they a Derby and Joan couple you have known for years, or a family you can vouch for ... Look at all your neighbours in your mind and ask yourselves, `Can I vouch for them, am I quite certain they have nothing to do with this abduction?"'

Mr Hebb gave the meeting an outline of the inquiry so far and stressed that police had many lines of inquiry.

He said it might become necessary to search every house in Soham, and a member of the audience said the townspeople would welcome that action.

Several people asked if there was anything more the town could do to help the police.

Many parents brought children to the meeting, which packed the village college with some 300-350 people, and many asked about paedophiles and sex offenders in the area.

Police refused to discuss individuals within the town, saying they did not have the resources to cope with public order problems, like those seen in many towns during the Sarah Payne investigation.

One woman who did not give her name asked the meeting how safe children could be in Soham while the potential abductors were still on the loose.

Inspector Simon Causer said: "These events are incredibly rare. My advice to you would be to look at where they are and where they go.

"Please remember that there are only a handful of these cases across the country, but I can't stand here and say to you that they are 100% safe."

Another man asked if police would be prosecuting those felt to have wasted police time by giving inaccurate witness reports.

Mr Hebb said: "It is not always clear as to people's motives, we have had some time wasters, we have had malicious callers and what we do about that we will get round to in the long term.

"At the moment we are focused on finding Jessica and Holly."

He said some houses in the town had already been thoroughly searched, based on "targeted" information from the public but said he could not discuss the individuals involved.

"Several speakers appealed to the media to do whatever possible to keep the disappearance in the public eye, but stop criticising the police investigation.

Mr Hebb said: "There is no way I am going to sit in front of you tonight and say we have got every aspect of this inquiry right, but what I am prepared to say is we are trying our hardest."

His response drew the biggest round of applause of the evening from the hundreds packed into the hall in oppressive heat which caused one elderly woman to faint.

Methodist minister Alan Ashton said helplines were being set up to offer support to people in the community who have been deeply affected by the investigation.

He said: "You are doing a wonderful thing in Soham and that is you are talking to each other and supporting each other and we need to continue that.

"But it may be that people affected by Holly and Jessica's disappearance have troubles and deep feelings within them that they want to talk to people about."

Town council leaders said there was a sense of "frustration" with the market town that people could not do more to help with the search.

Mr Hebb said: "At times the community are clearly frustrated, they feel they want to be doing something but I feel that we have built some bridges tonight, we have explained the situation."

He added: "I think the meeting went really well, it was a magnificent display by the residents of Soham and we feel buoyed up by their support."